The buzz topic that many people in computing now mention in almost every conference, journal or text book, is IT Governance.

Everywhere you go you will hear the terms IT governance framework, IT compliance, ITIL and even Sarbanes Oxley.

So for a moment, just consider, what is IT compliance and why is it so important to you and your business?

In this article, we will go some way to explaining the answer to these burning questions in more detail.

To start with, like most terms that are bandied around the computer industry, "IT Governance" has no standard definition. It evolved from "corporate governance", which is a concept that has been around for a while. The IT governance management term and others like it, have gained prominence from many well-publicised case studies that have come to light in recent years.

In fact we have much to learn from the IT governance advice that is offered by some of the worlds most successful IT governance plan implementers.

While corporate governance refers to the process of properly managing a business, by applying and aviding by certain rules and procedures, IT compliance or an IT governance plan follows the same line of thinking but is just simply applied to the IT function within the business itself.

Further on from this though, the philosphy of an IT governance framework is a discipline that involves management people, processes and resources. Ultimately, it is about aligning the organisation's IT goals with its business goals to ensure optimum and uniterrupted service delivery.

Several methodologies that have been designed to help IT managers structure and formalise the IT management process, are now available.

The two most commonly used IT governance solutions are CoBIT and ITIL.

CoBIT (Control Objectives for Information Technology) is owned and developed by the US-based Information Systems Audit and Control Association. The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (known as ITIL) originated in the UK, where it was develoepd as a result of the government's desire to develop a common framework for auditing the IT function of its many agencies.

ITIL has grown into a multi-volume IT governance framework that describes and outlines best practice standards in IT management.

ITIL and IT governance solutions are the ‘in thing’ now. If you want to provide yourself with peace of mind, than implementing an IT compliance management framework is the way to proceed.

IT governance can always help, even if all you do is implement a simple and straightfoward IT audit and then create a plan for your IT personnel to follow. At the very least this will help you to improve the very nature by which you conduct your business.